The Lone Ranger

[TexasTower]

I really liked it. This is old-school film making as everything is real and not CGI. This makes all of the action much more realistic.

The plot is good, there are many funny parts, and the action is great.

Horns up from me on this one.

 

[Bill in Sinton]

I agree. This was a great movie and I really enjoyed it. Everyone forget the critics and go see it for yourselves. You will be glad you did.

 

[RomaVicta]

Glad to hear this. Most of the other summer blockbusters have been pretty dull, maybe this one will rise above. I'm particularly glad to hear that it's not a CGI fest, I'm so bored with that.

 

[OldHippie]

I was planning to see it just because of Johnny Depp but glad to hear people liked it.

 

[Badass]

I thought it was good not great. The bashing of it seems excessive. Definitely worth a trip to the movies

 

[Crockett]

Finally went to see it tonight. It was fun.

 

[FAST FRED]

I'm a distant cousin of East Texas oilman Jack Wrather, whose Wrather Productions bought and managed the complete rights to "The Lone Ranger" and "Lassie" in the fifties.

I got to meet Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels and Silver at a Lone Ranger movie premier in Dallas.

Wrather was first married to Molly, the daughter of Texas Governor "Pappy" O'Daniel, and later he wed screen actress Bonita Granville.

He also built and owned the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim until he died in 1984.

And he bought and restored Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose and the Queen Mary and made them tourist attractions in Long Beach.

I all visited those Wrather possessions.

I'll watch Johnny Depp play Tonto sometime, but meeting the real Lone Ranger, his faithful Indian companion and his trusty steed backstage, plus seeing that 1956 movie from the front row, was pretty darned cool.

I believe this is the third Lone Ranger movie.

The iconic masked man was the main hero in the first two.

Jack Wrather successfully sued Clayton Moore to make him stop appearing in costume as the Lone Ranger when the second movie came out in 1981 because that flick had a different, younger star.

But, Wrather's suit against Moore angered many loyal Lone Ranger fans and the ensuing bad publicity was one reason that movie was not very well-received.

This dispute may be referred to in Jim Croce's song:

"You don't tug on Superman's cape,

You don't spit into the wind,

You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger,

And you don't mess around with Jim."

Finally, before Jack Wrather died, permission was granted for Moore to resume making personal appearances masked and in costume.

Which he did.

Wrather also built the Disneyland Hotel (which was served by a futuristic monorail running in a loop around Disney's initial theme park from the hotel's lobby to Tomorrowland and back) at Walt's request, since all that famous Imagineer's financial resources were already tied up in the building of Disneyland.

If you stayed at the Disneyland Hotel, your admission to the park was already included in the room charge.

Plus you could leave the park by monorail and go rest in your hotel room or swim in the pool and then return to ride some more rides, if you so desired.

And you didn't ever have to wait in the long line at the park's main entrance or mess with parking.

After the park made enough money, when Disney wanted to buy the hotel to consolidate his whole vision, Wrather refused to sell while he and Granville were still living in the penthouse.

After Jack's death, Walt was able to acquire that hotel and some other Wrather properties including The Lone Ranger.

For a while, Wrather also owned Muzak Corporation, which supplied "elevator music" via radio and/or recordings to various business environments.

Wrather Corporation also had the complete rights to "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" and his wonder dog King and owned other hotel properties at Lake Tahoe and in Las Vegas, Newport Beach and Palm Springs.

Well, I finally saw the new movie.

Good action using both stuntmen and CGI.

And I was entertained.

However, an overly complicated storyline produced a too long movie that was more a vehicle for Johnny Depp than the Lone Ranger.

I was somewhat reminded of the better focused Arthur Penn/Dustin Hoffman flick "Little Big Man" or that more completely told Cinerama (three screens wide, three hours long with intermission) John Ford/Henry Hathaway epic "How The West Was Won."

Except for the often spectacular action, this "The Lone Ranger" wasn't as good as either of those movies, IMHO.

Not nearly enough "William Tell Overture" or "Hi-Yo Silver, Away" for this old fan.

However, probably not enough young viewers knew the old radio/TV story or the characters well enough to connect with them or care what they did.

 

[Vol Horn 4 Life]

It was a pretty good movie and entertaining. I doubt any awards are won though.

 

[afat]

There were some odd choices in this movie. If you make a 260 million dollar movie, and you want kinds to go see it, you may want to leave cannibalism out as one of the major themes, especially if has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

This movie gets worse the more I think about it.